The Ghost of Grimmauld Place
by brokenbottleaurora
Summary: Though Sirius Black had moved on to the next great adventure, Harry finds that he haunts every corner of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.


_Disclaimer: If the Potterverse was mine, things would have gone very differently. That said, many thanks to JK Rowling for letting us play in the world she created. It's one hell of a sandbox._

* * *

Harry woke from his fitful sleep in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place and quietly stretched his arms over his head, trying to work out the new crick in his neck. As he lay silent in his sleeping bag on the floor, the chaos of yesterday came flooding back to him: Death Eaters at the wedding, Death Eaters in the café, Dumbledore's dusty specter. So much had happened that, by the time they had made it upstairs, all he, Ron, and Hermione could think about was sleep. He was definitely feeling the aftereffects—he needed the loo and a drink, not necessarily in that order.

Rising slowly, Harry padded out of the drawing room, leaving a slumbering Ron and Hermione not quite holding hands. Though he was happy for his friends, the situation struck him as odd; love in Grimmauld Place seemed so out of place, especially now that Sirius—

He never saw the pain coming. Harry fell face-first against the wall, one arm supporting his forehead and the other wrapped tightly around his middle, trying to hold himself together. His knees buckled beneath him, and he slid slowly down the wall and curled into a ball, struggling to breathe through the great sobs wracking his body.

Harry could handle pain. When he had been Crucio'ed by Voldemort in the graveyard, his entire body had felt like it was being simultaneously lit on fire and stabbed with a thousand knives, but still he'd managed to escape. This time was different, at once better and worse. Chills shook his entire body as his head was assailed by a dozen sledgehammers. His chest caved in on itself, and his guts twisted into knots that would make a sailor proud. He'd fought so hard not to think of Sirius last night, knowing the deluge of memories would likely bring him to tears; he never expected to be incapacitated by the pain, guilt, and loneliness they would bring. Harry struggled to collect himself, shoving the emotions back into the recesses of his mind—he could deal with them later. With a deep, shuddering breath, he stood on shaky legs and shuffled down the stairs, gripping the banister.

When he reached the ground floor, a recovering Harry paused in front of Walburga Black's curtained portrait. The woman had hated Sirius when she was alive; it was only fitting that during his tenure as its owner, he'd taken grim pleasure in "filling the noble house with filth" as she screamed and screeched from the confines of her frame. Recalling the loud keening dredged up a memory from the depths of Harry's mind, and he found himself frozen as it materialized before him: _Just as she did before every Order meeting, Tonks stumbled through the front door and knocked over the umbrella stand, sending Walburga wailing. Remus tried to silence the demon's portrait before giving up and charming the heavy curtains closed. Sirius simply stood back and laughed hysterically at his friend. When he finally recovered, Padfoot said he wished it had been that easy to shut her up while she was alive. Moony nodded; her howlers had been legendary. He then joked that her howling was probably louder than both of theirs combined. The Marauders shared a mischievous look, and the subsequent vocal demonstration reduced Tonks to tears._ Harry shivered, wishing he could exorcise the woman from the painting and the memory from his mind.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Harry crept down the hall of portraits that somehow maintained their austerity, even in slumber, and quietly entered the kitchen. He made a beeline for the fridge, trying not to let his eyes land on the empty, well-scrubbed kitchen table. Snatching the first flask of pumpkin juice he could find, Harry uncorked and drained it, making sure the refrigerator door blocked his view of the room. When he couldn't put it off any longer, Harry sighed, closed the door, and braced himself.

 _Sirius held court from his favorite chair, ensconced in the center of the table so he could catch as much of the action and conversation as possible. He was leaning his chair back on two legs and yelling down the table at Arthur about something to do with hippogriffs and headwinds. The plate in front of him was still mostly full because he spent most of the mealtimes talking with everyone else, desperate to soak up as much human contact as possible before the Order would leave again, abandoning him to his prison._ Solitary confinement hadn't been good for Sirius, and Harry's stomach churned with the thought of how alone the man must have felt in his final months. He threw open the door and barreled back down the hallway, barely making it to the bathroom before emptying the contents of his stomach into the sink. After cleaning up and taking care any other necessary business, he trudged back toward the first floor drawing room.

Harry knew better than to look into the dining room as he passed it on his way back to the stairs, but then again he'd never learned to do what was good for him. _Sirius was poised in his usual chair, propping his elbows on the table and listening intently to Fred and George as they discussed a new powder they were considering importing from Peru. There was a spark in his gray eyes as he listened to the twins consider the product's utility in both pranking their fellow students and fighting large groups of Death Eaters, especially when outnumbered. Sirius began waving his arms wildly; the conversation had brought to mind an old story about a time when the Marauders could have used some of it themselves._ Harry's heart yearned painfully to see him so vibrant, so mischievous, so achingly whole.

Ripping his eyes away, Harry finally made it back upstairs to the drawing room. Before he could lie back down, he felt pulled to the Black family tapestry as if by some ancient magic. He reached out and brushed his fingers against the burned spot where Sirius's face should be; it was cold to the touch—cold, and dead as the man himself. " _I used to be there," Sirius murmured, gently fingering the scorch mark; the look on his face was both wistful and grimly satisfied. He wore his badge of dishonor with pride, because being a part of_ this _family was nothing any good man would boast of. But even the knowledge that he was right couldn't completely numb the sting of being disowned and unloved. "My sweet old mother blasted me off…"_ _he continued, trying to hide the catch in his voice._ Harry pressed his digits harder against the fabric, as if he could bring Sirius to life by his own magic, love, and sheer willpower.

But there was nothing. No more reappearances, no flash of light, no chasm in the space-time continuum. Sirius was still dead and gone; the spectral memories were all that was left of the only family he'd ever known. But Harry had already learned that just because it existed only in his mind didn't mean it was any less real. Snape had once said that ghosts were the imprints of departed souls left on earth; if that held true, Harry knew that Sirius's imprint was indelibly etched on every inch of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

Exhausted by the flood of memories and emotions, Harry simply crawled back into his sleeping bag. Lying there in the dark, he decided that some ghosts haunted places; others haunted people.

* * *

Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Team, Position: Wigtown Wanderers, Seeker

Prompt: K-drama - _Oh My Ghost._ Theme - a relationship of any sort between a ghost and a human.

Word Count: 1250 per GoogleDocs


End file.
